Me And My Friend Nostalgia.
I watched A Minecraft Movie yesterday and lost my mind.
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared in 1989 that the fall of the Berlin Wall and thus the end of the Cold War represented the end of history. Not so much that events worth studying for generations to come would no longer occur, but more so that Western Neoliberalism winning out over Communism represented the end of ideological evolution as the universalization of liberalism was the final form of human government1. That is to say, essentially, while there may be slight aberrations and deviations for the rest of time from what we now know as the norm of liberalism, there will be no real alternative. I think, 4 decades later in a completely new and removed yet completely similar world, there’s an indelible truth he was able to strike at unexpectedly.
In the 2020s, and the 21st century as a whole, no phenomenon has vindicated him more than nostalgia-baiting. Endless referencing to trends in our patterns of consumption rooted in the fact that ultimately, the future that postmodernity presents to us on a gold platter of excess and on-demand access to dopamine is exceedingly bleak in every sense of the word. In an ideological sense, we are in the midst of a speeding lurch towards far-right politics firmly planting itself in the public sphere and seeping into every single facet of our lives, regardless of one’s personal political standings. I have spent the last [redacted] months of my life chirping into the void about this as my Substack will stand as testimony to when I eventually pass onto the next plane. In a material sense, the inevitable economic downturns that have plagued us constantly due to the innate contradictions in late stage capitalism and the austerity that arose out of response of it has led to a reality where the amenities from 25 years ago seem utopian, and house prices are soaring with no end in sight.
Naturally, in the face of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t world, who WOULDN’T turn to times where things were more colourful, bold and simpler? They weren’t any of these things naturally but the illusion means more to us than reality, as evidenced. The 2020s and our patterns of consumptions vis a vis being able to extract anything we want from history as far as it being completely removed from the context and ideology that forged it, thus making it fit for our consumption. Think Gen Z’s relationship with Y2K clothing, sample craze in music, music videos and film reusing iconography from decades past for the purpose of invoking in the audience a comfortable familiarity as opposed to wanting to impress any specific feeling, message or ideology. And so on and so forth.
Really, I don’t want to tread and rehash what has been written about extensively for decades. I think sometimes when it comes to cultural and social commentary, there is a big problem with writers stopping at articulating thoughts that someone came up with [insert] years ago and adding no new perspective to it to make their analysis worth reading. I think that’s mad boring, so I will not be going over what Mark Fisher already said in Capitalist Realism!
Instead, I truly seek to engage with what exactly nostalgia represents for someone like me. I think when it comes to the trend of nostalgia in art of the 2020s, the analysis starts and stops at the ideology and patterns of consumptions fueling such a trend, but rarely is the feeling on a personal level ever quantified in a way that’s meaningful past expressing distaste for it. Which, considering the scale of the phenomenon in question, is completely understandable but I think when it comes to thinking about large scale phenomena we should always remember that these things have very visceral effects on a 1:1 scale and that should not be lost on us as writers as I believe we have a duty to bear that in mind lest our work cease to connect with the very people we appeal to.
With that being said, for me? I think on a day to day, there is a hollowness I carry with me that late-stage capitalism has engendered in me. That is to say, as a black person born to a pair of immigrants without much but some lint in their pockets on their arrival, many of the things I have gone through in my life have been grains of sand blown by the wind of government policy and global economics. Wholly out of my control, essentially. Recession, austerity, pandemic, recession, austerity, and now (not just now) the housing crisis that my generation is faced with due to the chronic ineptitude of those we entrusted with making a future worth living in for everyone took root before I even had a chance to understand the fact that the odds are stacked against me to begin with. And this is before I even begin to mention that Shakespearan tragedy that is my personal life which seems to be spiralling right now (more on that the next time I write probably). You can imagine, as I know a lot of you know far too well, that this is a lot to carry on any given day.
And as a result of a lot of miseducation (yet another pending article), it’s safe to say that I have some less than optimal methods of coping with the madness of postmodernity for the black population. Naturally, tried and tested methods of self harmvcoping such as alcoholism and unhealthy work life balance are par for the course, truly relics handed down from those before me like vintage clothes. But the one truly unique to Gen Z, one that I think every single person reading this article has succumbed to knowingly or otherwise is the bombardment of dopamine our smartphones have afforded us. Why process my emotions or reckon with my reality in a meaningful way when, with a couple swipes and taps, I get on demand dopamine that tricks my brain into thinking that good things are happening? And why change this method when it’s been in my life for upwards of a decade? These are not questions I consider because, you know, I’m too busy doomscrolling, gorging myself on the latest week long hyper-niche trend of terminally online humour to really be a functional adult.
And with all that being said, not only do I get to gorge on dopamine, but now due to what can only be described as our collective trauma and our inability to accept that things were never as good as they felt at the time, I can now be treated to nostalgia of the good times? We’re living la vida loca as it pertains to consumption, truly !
Except, in this dreamscape of consumption we’ve carved ourselves (or have had carved for us, depending on what type of person you are), none of it truly ever feels real. The dopamine my brain’s executive functions have been crippled by through craving only serves to pacify, and inundate, as opposed to doing anything to fix anything. The dreamscape we can’t free ourselves from don’t want to leave resembles more of a barren wasteland with some colouring painted over it when you inspect it close enough. Deep down, I know this content cheaply invokes feelings in me that are familiar, and doesn’t challenge any of my sensibilities because ultimately, a part of me doesn’t want to accept how bleak things are. Because that makes it real. And if the 2020s have been defined by anything, it’s how manipulated and manufactured social media has made everything, even our own understanding of personhood. But a bigger part of me knows that, if we’re ever going to see a better reality for those that will come after us, we have to accept just how [redacted] this one is by telling the truth.
The truth of the matter is, nostalgia-tinted slop isn’t going anywhere, because the feeling that makes us yearn for times gone isn’t going anywhere. And the reason nostalgia isn’t going anywhere any time soon is because, aside from the fact that we are humans with a memory that cannot be trusted, things are bleaker now than they’ve ever been. Corporations and the rich march us closer and closer to a reality where the future of the Earth itself is no longer a given. The Global South is no closer to liberation from the West’s exploitation and suppression than when all the martyrs and figureheads we look to for inspiration were murdered decades ago. Far-right sentiment is spiking to seemingly no peak in the foreseeable future, with extremists being embraced and thrust into positions of power at frightening speed.The gap between the working class and the uber rich expands at a never before seen rate, while the threshold of being a homeowner and living a life that’s not under strain gets higher with inflation and wage stagnation. Denying that things are worse would be a fool’s errand at this point in time.
However, in the acceptance that things are worse, comes a very obvious next step. What makes nostalgia-slop so harmful is that, in essence, we are being sold and then subsequently selling each other lies on a feedback loop. Whether it be reminiscing over the good Thatcherite policies did for the working class (ridiculous notion), or how afroswing in 2017 was actually Black Britons’ last worthy contribution to music ever and everything else is a Playboi Carti pastiche, we believe a lot of hilarity. I think, in order to combat what can only be described as a wilful deceit, we have to prescribe ourselves healthy doses of truth in the things we choose to consume, and create.
To me, that looks like honest dialogue about the things we walk around with internally, because as far as I see it, you can’t build a bridge across a gap if you don’t acknowledge there’s a gap to begin with. And that dialogue isn’t restricted to just conversations in our life, but is also a challenge extended to those who create things that extend past our personal lives. Fashion designers, musicians, journalists, anyone. I think the onus is on us, more than most, to reflect the times with faithful interpretations of everything we see right now, good or bad, and communicate that without the distillation of nostalgia in pursuit of a quick path to success. We underestimate how much our individual roles play a part in the bigger picture, but a house starts with one brick doesn’t it?
The constant back and forth between the sayings that art imitates life and life imitates art comes to mind, because I think both are true simultaneously. We live, believe and we create based on what our lives have been shaped by, and our lives and beliefs are also shaped by the art we engage with in part. With that being said, we should endeavour to live as though we believe the future generations deserve more than what we have. Because there’s only so many times I’m willing to hear about the summer of 2016 being the peak of human civilisation before I rip my hair out strand by strand.
This is the most food for thought i have recieved from anything ever my mind actually hurts a bit